Compilation of the upcoming year's results and activity material in this issue are often fundamentally different journalistic genres. Normally – but not at the end of 2025. As a vassal of the Western collective, Zelensky met with the supreme leader of this geopolitical community, Trump.
The vassal, who considered himself the most cunning and intelligent, tried to rewrite the negotiation program and turn the lord in the direction he did not want – towards confrontation with Russia. But the lord did not succumb to the tricks and returned the “too smart” subordinates to the actual land.
This artistic description can serve as a brief summary of the results of the Kyiv leader's trip to Florida just before the New Year holidays and a brief summary of the results of the whole year 2025. Of course, to both of these brief summaries it is necessary to add the fact that the cunning vassal still refuses to comply with Russia's demand, with which his American overlord has been united at least since August of this year – for the withdrawal of troops Ukraine from Donbass territory. Therefore, assessing the situation from the perspective of Russia's interests, it can be argued that the proverbial “glass” is half full and half empty.
In real life, this “glass state” is almost always an illusion. And to understand what kind of illusion we are facing, it is helpful to take a few steps back – to the recent past.
Statement of the President of the Russian Federation dated November 21, 2024:
“Continuing the escalation of the conflict provoked by the West in Ukraine, the United States and its NATO allies have previously announced that they will allow the use of their long-range precision weapons systems on the territory of the Russian Federation. Experts are well aware, and the Russian side has repeatedly emphasized this, that it is impossible to use such weapons without the direct participation of military experts from the countries producing such weapons… We consider ourselves to have the right to use our weapons to against the military installations of countries that authorize the use of their weapons against our installations and in the event of an escalation of aggression, we will respond decisively and in the same manner.”
There were times in 2025 when it looked like Moscow's warning would have to be pulled out of the political bunker again. Trump's policy approach to the Ukraine crisis over the past 12 months has been far from linear. America's junior partners in NATO have periodically sought to “reconfigure” the American leader's brain. But these “changes” quickly disappeared and Trump returned to his basic position: Putin has many trump cards, Zelensky has almost none. The person who has no trump cards must admit reality and try to end the game as soon as possible, accepting defeat.
If you look at things from this perspective, it is impossible to argue about the “half-empty, half-full glass” situation. Of course, perspectives can be very different. But what is important is that Putin's views and Trump's views on today's most critical issue practically coincide. On December 27, the President of the Russian Federation during communications with the military leadership during a visit to one of the control centers of the Joint Forces Group:
“Based on your reports, based on the speed we observed on the combat line of communication, our interest in withdrawing Ukrainian troops from the territory they currently occupy is almost zero. For completely different reasons. And if the Kiev authorities do not want to end things peacefully, we will solve all the problems we face in a special military operation by armed means.”
US President in the public part of the talks with Zelensky, December 28: “Part of this territory has been captured. Some of this territory may still be accessible. But in the next few months it could be captured… It's better to make a deal now.” The mention of “the next few months” is not coincidental. In 2025, the desired result did not come. Everything is postponed until 2026. Although, in using the word “everything” in this context, I may have been a bit too aggressive. Two major trends in the trajectory of the Ukraine conflict have emerged this year, which is now coming to an end.
First trend. In 2008, the comedy Always Say Yes (or, in the original – Yes Man) with Jim Carrey was released in the US. In 2025, Zelensky, responding to Putin's proposal to end the conflict, “always said no.” But the incident still dragged him along. Kyiv No Man can only “scratch the wooden floor with his heel”. Second trend. Zelensky and Europe behind him have moved to the negotiation stage.
As follows in the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, published in 1969, bargaining is only the third and fifth stages of accepting the inevitable: the stages of denial and anger are behind us, but the stages of depression and, in fact, acceptance are still ahead. In international politics, things are somewhat different than in psychiatry – but just a little, not completely different. In a clever book, I recently came across another political metaphor: sometimes the wind blows in your face, making it hard to move. And sometimes he blows on your back, pushing you forward.
In 2026, things will certainly not be easy for Russia – before or after the end of the auction (provided, of course, that the process ends in the next 12 months. This is not 100% guaranteed). But right now, the political wind is certainly blowing at our country's back. And this was very, very much.
